Duck and Cover
by Smileyfax
Summary: Daria and Jane become trapped in a relic of the Cold War.
1. Chapter 1

"It should be around here somewhere, Jane," Daria said, trying to reassure her friend as they aimed their flashlights around the abandoned utility tunnels somewhere beneath Lawndale.

"Sure, Daria. Let me scrape that into the dust so that the archaeologists will know our last words." Jane was crankier than usual, having been searching for several hours in the near-dark with no end in sight.

"Tell me about this place we're looking for again?" she asked.

"In 1961, during the height of Cold War paranoia, Buck Conroy Senior founded the Conroy Shelter Company. The CSC designed blast and fallout shelters for both public and governmental use, but they never got much business until after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then, they made a brisk business of selling fallout shelters to the city of Lawndale -- nevermind that most of the cheaper ones would have collapsed when Baltimore took a hit."

"Right right, and the shelter we're looking for?"

"In '65, the city hall commissioned a command post-style blast/fallout shelter from CSC. It was kept hush-hush, half because it cost over 100 million and half because nobody outside of office would ever be using it. Of course, a year or two after it was completed word was leaked to the press, and the mayor at the time and his cronies were all kicked out in a special election. Over time, people just forgot about the shelter's existence, but it was all right there in the library."

A rat suddenly scurried across the path of their beams, and both girls screamed. Then, they looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Anyway, the rest of the story is obvious: CSC folds in the 70s, the USSR folds in the 80s, and here we are."

They stopped. They really were there. It was a large, round, steel door, the kind seen on bank vaults. To one side was a keypad.

"Well, it would be nice if we knew the code," Jane said.

Daria approached the keypad and punched in a few numbers. After a moment, a quiet rumble shook the teens as the door slowly opened for the first time in four decades.

"What was the code? How did you know it?" Jane asked.

"1776. I read it in the town records, on an invoice for the shelter."

Finally, after a minute, the vault door finished opening. A long steel corridor stretched before them into darkness.

"Ooh, creepy," Jane said with a smile, advancing forward.

"Damnit, Jane, wait!" Daria said, watching the flashlight's beam get smaller and smaller. "Damnit," she uttered again, following her friend.

As they walked down the corridor, fluorescent lights began flickering on above them. They turned off their flashlights and continued to a steel door at the end of the hallway, which retracted into the ceiling as they approached.

"Ooh!" Jane cried. "Neat, very Star Trek."

The doorway was perched at the top of the next room, with a steel staircase leading down to the floor. The wall opposite them was covered with a large political map of the planet -- it was clearly out of date, as it had the USSR on it. The side walls were lined with very large, very old computers. The floor of the room had several rows of desks, each with a telegraph transmitter and telephone in place. After the two descended the stairs, Daria approached and investigated one of the computers. She wasn't sure, but she thought it used punchcards.

"I think this was supposed to be the war room," Daria observed.

"Hey, let's call out for pizza!" Jane said, picking up a phone. "Humph, no dial tone," she said, a bit hurt.

Suddenly, one of the computers started up with the great whirring of fans and started to print something out. Daria and Jane approached to read the printout.

SECURE LINE TO WASHINGTON CUT OFF

PROBABILITY WASHINGTON DESTROYED 99.5

NUCLEAR ATTACK IMMINENT

SEALING ENTRANCE FOR 2 YEARS REQUIRED FOR FALLOUT TO DECAY TO NONLETHAL LEVELS

"Sealing?" Daria whispered.

"ENTRANCE!" Jane shouted.

The girls dashed back to the stairs, but already the low rumble alerted them to the shelter's closing. By the time they reached the thick steel vault door, it was barely open a crack; if Daria cared to, she could stick her hand in it and find out what a crushed hand felt like.

It sealed with a 'thud' of finality that made Daria and Jane's stomachs plummet to their boots. After a moment, the air circulators in the shelter kicked on, cycling out the stale air and bringing in processed air that felt cooler. That's how Daria explained why she was shivering, anyway.

She turned to Jane. "I suppose it's a bit late to say 'Touch nothing'." 


	2. Chapter 2

Daria and Jane stared at the sealed vault door for what seemed like minutes. "We should look for another way out," Daria suggested. "In missile silos, at least, they would build a secondary escape hatch some distance from the main exit in case the main got whacked by a bomb."

"Okay. That's good. A second entrance is definitely good," Jane said, sounding very calm.

The two friends went back to the war room and saw that a doorway was positioned under the staircase. They went through it and found another steel corridor, this one with doors along either side. Above the doors were signs: 'Dormitories', 'Mess Hall', 'Generator Room', 'Supplies', among others.

"Ooh, dibs on exploring the cafeteria!" Jane called out, entering the doorway.

"Go right ahead," Daria replied. She wasn't too keen on eating food which had probably expired before she was born, but it was better than gnawing on the soles of her boots. She decided to check out the generator room.

The door opened and she was greeted with the roar of a generator at work. She was glad it was still working after thirty years in mothballs (and apparently with fuel sitting in the tank), since she had no idea on how to keep it well maintained.

The generator had a fuel gauge on it, indicating it to be a little over half full. The room also had a number of steel drums. After giving each one a good clang, she decided they were full. She unscrewed the cap from one and took a whiff -- diesel.

After looking around to make sure that the secondary exit wasn't obscured by one of the drums, she left (noting that Jane was still in the mess hall) and entered the dormitories.

She counted 25 bunk beds, enough to sleep 50 (or 100, if they were friendly). She counted zero escape hatches.

In the supplies room, Daria found a large number of wooden crates. They all had something stenciled on them; the three closest to the door read 'Hydroponics', 'Sun Lamps', and 'Batteries'. She attempted to move one of the crates to see if a hatch might have been behind it, but it was too heavy. If she wanted to inspect the room closer, she would have to crack open the boxes and remove the contents first.

"Daria, you HAVE to check this out!" Jane's shout drew Daria out into the hall. "In here!" Jane beckoned. Daria looked up at which room Jane was in, and sighed. 'Weapons'.

"I'd like to see those zombie bastards try to get us now!" Jane said, shotgun cradled in her hands.

"Jane, as much as I admire your enthusiasm for blowing away the undead, I must remind you that the world has not, in fact, ended, and unless you know how to use that thing, you should just put it down."

"Oh come on, Daria, it was just a little-"

BANG 


	3. Chapter 3

Jane's eyes bugged out of her head as the shotgun discharged -- thank God it wasn't aimed at Daria -- and she very gently sat it down on the ground directly in front of her.

"I. I." Jane said.

"I know, Jane, you didn't know how sensitive the trigger can be. Nobody's hurt, so let's have you come and rest for a bit."

"Okay. I'd like that," Jane said, subdued.

Daria led Jane back to the dormitories, where she took a bunk and soon fell asleep. Daria herself elected to continue exploring the bunker for an escape route.

The next room she explored made her stop and gasp. It was a huge, fully-stocked library. Just a quick perusal of the shelves closest to her revealed a bunch of literary classics. She wandered over to another shelf and read one of the book titles aloud: "The Negro Problem". Okay, so they weren't all classics.

Daria also found a wide array of technical manuals and other tomes of practical knowledge, the seeds to build a pre-industrial age civilization. While impressive, they didn't tell her where the escape hatch was, or how to drill through two feet of steel.

XXXX

The size and scope of the place really impressed Daria. There was a shooting range (unsurprising, given Jane's discovery); a gym (complete with swimming pool), showers (going two years without a shower wouldn't be very pleasant), even a theater. There were reels of both movies and TV shows present in the projector's booth, as well as what looked like Cold War propaganda films. Those would be good to watch with Jane, if only for a laugh.

She still hadn't found the damn escape hatch, though. She could think of two places where it might be hidden: Behind one of the bookshelves in the library, or behind the mess of crates in the Supplies room. But it would take a long time -- days, perhaps weeks -- to check both locations.

Her stomach rumbled. It made her think about all the food that lay entombed in here for three decades, and now she seriously wondered if it was still edible. She decided to wake Jane up, so they would find out together (or die clutching their poisoned stomachs together).

XXXX

"Okay, get ready, Jane," Daria told her, then began typing on the telegraph transmitter. "S...O...S..." Daria translated from the morse code. They had tried the transmitters on five desks before them, working off the theory that over the years the lines they and the phones had been connected to initially had been cut off or rotted away over the years. Daria was hopeful that one would work.

After a minute, the transmitter started beeping in reply. Jane hurriedly began writing down the dots and dashes as they came. Finally, after a few moments, it stopped.

"Thank God," Jane said, as Daria took the paper and began to translate it from the manual on morse code she had taken from the library.

"Shit," she uttered, stopping after only a few words.

"What? What's wrong?" Jane demanded.

Daria showed her the paper. She had written the translation under the dots and dashes -- and the words were in Spanish.

"Don't you know how to speak Spanish?" Daria asked.

Jane shook her head. "If you want me to translate amiga, sure. But I only picked up a word or two from Penny. Maybe the library has a Spanish dictionary in it?"

It didn't.

XXXX

They had moved all the tables in the mess hall to one side to accomodate the troughs of dirt they had set up which would someday grow fruits and vegetables.

The food that had been stored in the bunker was...edible, but both girls preferred something a little fresher. Hence, they had set up the gardening kit they found in the supply room (which they hadn't been able to clear out for two solid weeks of unpacking boxes and moving the contents out).

Their only hope was that the seeds that had been stored since the shelter closed had not gone stale, or dead, or whatever it is that seeds do.

As the two girls planted the seeds in each trough, Jane had a though. "What if we smashed those computers? Wouldn't the door open then?"

Daria shook her head. "They designed the system so that the door couldn't be opened prematurely, even if the residents went stir-crazy. Breaking the computers might even damage the timing mechanism -- how would you like to spend the next 200 years in here?"

"Point taken."

XXXX

Daria really wished that whoever had stocked the shelter had thought to include bathing suits.

"Do you have to do that, Jane?" she asked, avoiding looking at her friend.

"What?" Jane asked. "I can't go for a swim? Well, there isn't any room to run down here, what do you expect me to do?" The grin on Jane's face betrayed her innocent tone.

"Can't you...I don't know...use a sheet as a toga?"

Jane's mouth fell open. "That's it, Daria!"

"What? What's it?"

"Toga party!" 


	4. Chapter 4

Daria and Jane watched the old episode of the Honeymooners, wrapped in their togas, as they dug the Spam out of their opened cans with spoons.

"Well, this is a real blast," Daria said.

"I know!" Jane said overenthusiastically.

"Really, it's the social event of the year."

"Damn straight!"

Onscreen, Ralph Kramden threatened once again to batter his wife.

XXXX

The next time Daria thought about it, she realized it had been a month and a half since she and Jane had been locked into the bunker. She wondered if they had stopped looking yet on the outside.

She had kept trying to chat with the Spanish-speaking person on the other end of the telegraph. He either didn't understand her request for an English-speaking person, or there was nobody around who fit the profile. She had written everything down nonetheless, cross-referencing it with an English dictionary to find any similar-sounding words so that she might guess at the structure of the language.

Jane was of little help; she had been in seclusion the past week, and -- she was approaching Daria, a smile on her face.

"I've painted a new painting!" she said. Daria followed her as she led her to where she had been in seclusion.

"Behold, my latest portrait, entitled 'It Happens'!"

Daria looked at the painting (which had been done on a sheet stretched over one of the crate lids from the storage room). It was an interesting depiction painted in various shades of green and brown of she and Jane cowering under a jackbooted anthropomorphosized radiation symbol.

The most impressive part was that Daria and Jane had previously been unable to find paint anywhere in the shelter.

"Jane, what did you use to paint this with?" Daria asked.

"Oh, my own poop."

Daria had only been truly revolted once before, when Beavis and Butt-head had shown her a dead rat, rotting, maggots crawling through its guts and on half its face.

"Uh. That's nice. I, uh, left the stove running, I'll be back later." And Daria left as fast as she politely could.

She was alarmed by Jane's behavior since they had arrived in the shelter. The reckless handling of the shotgun, Jane's dead serious insistence that they have a toga party (and her ignoring Daria's snarks about said party) and now this made her very worried for her best friend's sanity.

If she had to tie Jane up, it was going to be a long two years. 


End file.
